My actions might not make any sense to you, and they certainly weren’t based in reason, but you have to understand. The Cloaks took everything from me; I might tell you the story one day, but I’m not ready to do it. I haven’t thought about that day in years, and I’m not going to revisit it now. I will tell you another story though; it might illuminate a fraction of the hatred I have for those hooded bastards. This was a couple of years after my first encounter with them in the In Between at the demonic temple; they were ostensibly our allies even if the association was strained.
Emma and I were making out on a blanket; she was on top of me straddling me with one hand on my face and the other on my stomach under my Darth Vader t-shirt. I was much more muscular at the time; I guess a six pack is more attractive than ribs peaking through my skin, because no women have touched me like that in a long time. I had my arms wrapped around her waist partially supporting her weight; my mouth was on her neck applying light pressure. Her skin smelled like strawberries and tasted just a hint of salt; I closed my mouth and kissed her repeatedly moving my way up to her mouth. Her lips were the softest thing I’d ever felt in my life; she opened her mouth slightly and slipped her tongue into mine. It tasted sweet, and I instinctually gripped my arms tighter pulling her even closer to me. She thrust her pelvis forward slightly several times rubbing closely against mine. I wanted to flip her over and rip her clothes off right there, but I hesitated. Some small part of me told me to stop, but it felt very far away. My hands moved down ending on Emma’s ass which I gripped tightly with both hands. I felt her jeans, skin tight around her waist; they were lowriders. Don’t judge her too harshly, it was over a decade ago; she was also wearing a navy blue tank-top that was particularly low cut and looked very appealing. I slowly slid my hand up and under her shirt when she pulled back away from me slightly and whispered, “You remember Kaine and Neil are watching us right now, right?”
“I must have forgotten,” I replied with a smile moving my hands to her back as I kissed her again. We were in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn; a graveyard might sound like a weird place to hook up, but we lived in what was effectively a dorm with Neil and I sharing a room. We didn’t have a lot of places to be alone. The cemetery was beautiful in a Hunchback of Notre Dame kind of way, and it was enormous filled with thousands of graves and mausoleums lit ominously in the moon light; the estate was the home to many of New York City’s most famous and rich dead people. Oh, and we were hunting a demon. New York City had a serial killer; the news was calling him the son of son of Sam. I had to admit, that was better than what I had called him: demonfucker. We strongly suspected he was either possessed himself or working on the behest of demons; he had killed 7 people so far, all young couples. He would cut the bodies up and draw symbols in their blood; the news deemed him a Satanic lunatic, but we knew what he was really doing: demonology. Before I was born, all of the chapters of the Gnosilepides together handled maybe two or three demons per year, but in the two years I had been a full-fledged member at that time, my squadron had personally dealt with over a dozen demons. We weren’t sure the goals of this demon or if he was even possessed; it was conceivable he was just a nutjob that got a hold of a book of dark magic.
Emma and I were bait; we had done this every night for the past three nights in various “private” places or at least as private as you can get in New York City. So far, no luck but Kaine couldn’t look us in the eyes anymore. Emma lightly bit my lower lip and pulled her face away until it recoiled to its natural position. “That’s not fair! You know how much I like that,” I said softly grinning.
“Oh, I kn…” she started to say when she was interrupted.
“What are y’all doing?” a voice with a thick southern accent said. I’m from the part of the Midwest that borders the south; I’ve heard a lot of southern accents, but this guy had the thickest one I’d ever heard. There was something odd about his voice too; it was coming from too low. Emma and I sprung apart like someone just threw a grenade; the person the voice belonged to seemed to be intentionally staying in the shadows. The moon was full and providing a lot of light not to mention the numerous dim street lamps, but little to no light fell on the man; I couldn’t even see an outline.
“Sorry Sir, we were just looking for a private place. We didn’t mean to cause any trouble!” Emma said apologetically. There was a very good chance he was a security guard; they occasionally patrol the graveyard, and we’d already had to hide from one of them.
“Haven’t you heard it’s dangerous to be all by yourselves? There’s a killer on the loose,” he exclaimed with excitement in his voice. I still couldn’t see him, but I could hear the smile on his face. “I’d run if I were y’all.” Half walking, half crawling, he came into the light; he was all fours like a gorilla wearing dirty clothes. His shoulder length black hair was matted to his head, and his pale skin was covered in mud… or possibly poop. God, I hope it was mud. He was so skinny, he looked on the verge of starvation. Unfortunately, he was close enough to smell now, and it was horrendous: he smelled like a skunk crawled into raw sewage and the whole lot baked in the sun for four days. The pertinent observation was his eyes: he had glowing blue eyes with horizontal slits for pupils; in fact, they were glowing so brightly, he must have kept them shut in the shadows to remain undetected. Not that it mattered; someone with the democculus can see through solid objects including eye lids. Even more concerning, the sclera of both eyes was completely black, meaning not only was he possessed, but the demon was actively in control of his body. As he crawled closer, his behavior became increasingly erratic; not only was he crawling on the ground, but he had a weird tick. Every few steps he took, he would jerk his head back toward his left shoulder. Furthermore, his wide creepy smile devolved into a snarl for just a moment at random intervals, and each time it happened, he would growl.
“We will feast on your entrails and make more!” he screamed clapping delightedly.
“Make more what?” I asked in forced calm voice and as politely as I could muster.
“More of them,” he said before his face contorted into a bewildered expression. His head twitched toward his shoulder three times in rapid succession before he continued, “More of us!”
“How many of you are there?” I pressed my luck. He would stop stalking and start attacking any moment now, but I wanted as much information as I could get before that happened.
He looked me in the eye and gave me a genuine smile; it was like he had actually seen me for the first time. Just then, his eyes morphed; they went from a deep blue to a royal green, and his pupils changed from slits to two identical triangles touching at a corner. They looked like hour glasses almost; however, his sclera stayed pitch black. His ticks suddenly stopped, and he stood to his feet. “My name is Legion, for we are many,” he said with no trace of a southern accent.
“Legion? Really? Why not try something original? Like Numerous, The Many, or Shitload!” I helpfully suggested.
I guess he didn’t like that because the second the last word left my mouth, he pounced with speed that could match mine; I also saw a glint of something metallic in his hand. He was holding a kitchen knife; not a steak knife or a cleaver, but one of those dull, serrated butter knives. If a normal human had a butter knife, there wouldn’t be much danger in being stabbed, but “Legion” could probably have swung it hard enough to puncture my skull. I moved to defend myself, but Emma appeared in front of me, grabbing the man’s wrist, stopping the kitchen knife about half an inch in front of her aorta. He swung his other arm in a punch; Emma dodged while still holding onto the killer’s other arm and pushed him to the ground in a weird double arm hold where his arms were crossed in front of him. I moved quickly to hold his ankles down to ensure he was completely immobilized. The man lifted his head, the only thing he could move, into the air and screeched so loudly, it could have shattered glass. The screech was inhuman; I don’t know the scientific words to describe this properly, but the pitch alternated very quickly; each second it went from so deep I could feel it in my bones more than hear it to so high I thought my ears might start bleeding and back about fifty times. His pupils and irises changed once again to pure white with no pupil at all, quite jarring against the black background. With a single motion, he jumped to his feet throwing Emma and me in different directions. She landed gracefully on her feet; I’d like to say I did too, but no, I landed flat on my back driving the wind from my lungs.
I shook my head back and forth to clear it; I got back to my feet just in time to see the man slashing repeatedly at Emma with his knife. Unfortunately, due to our incognito mission, she was unable to carry her katana; that wasn’t slowing her down though. She was easily dodging all Legion’s attacks; we were under strict orders not to kill this asshole, but I couldn’t watch him slice Emma to pieces. I held my hand out and sent a lightning bolt the thickness of my wrist surging forward. The demon fell to all fours and surged away dodging the lightning, but with an effort of will, I curved the bolt midair striking him from behind. Legion roared inhumanly as the current grounded through his body. He fell to the ground with burns all over his torso, seemingly unconscious.
“Dante!” Emma reprimanded me. “We were supposed to bring him in alive!” I never looked away from him, and his burns began to dissolve into unscarred flesh.
“He’s not even finished, much less dead,” I replied. Emma looked on in horror as Legion whipped his head up to glare at us. This time, his eyes were glowing red with square pupils; he seemed more bestial than ever. His canine teeth had elongated, and his mouth was dripping with some kind of foam. He tensed to jump like a jaguar or something when I shit you not, he did the fucking Gollum cough. Ok, maybe it wasn’t exactly the Gollum cough, but his body convulsed as he grunted, and it sounded like a word being repeated. I’m not sure what word it was exactly, but it sounded like “Sillius,” or “Lillius” or something to that effect.
With a wave of her hand and the flash of a brown sigil, the earth swallowed Legion whole. I pressed the tattoo on my left arm signaling Kaine and Neil to come meet us. I stared at the lump in the ground, and it was moving: the demon was struggling against his make-shift cage. Emma grunted with continued effort; I looked at her, and she had brown sigils before both hands. “I can’t hold him for long; he’s strong,” she grunted.
“I don’t think we’re in much danger of accidentally killing him. Let him out, and I’ll make him more… compliant,” I spat, summoning my sword. I looked Emma in the eyes; she seemed reluctant, but she nodded and ended the spell. The creature that burst forth from the ground did not look like the dirty man that was trapped; he now stood nearly seven feet tall with pure white hair that looked like it just came out of a curling iron. His build had changed as well; he looked like he spent six months training to be in Marvel movie. Furthermore, he had one glowing green eye and one pale pink eye as well as a black horn growing out of the center of his head; maybe most concerning of all, his left arm ended not in a hand but in what looked like a rusted iron blade. He was looking up in the sky at something I couldn’t see, nodding emphatically.
“Yes, of course,” dozens of voices spoke from his mouth simultaneously. He moved toward me incredibly quickly, his blade arm swinging overhand. I blocked with my sword and prepared a fire spell with my other hand; however, things did not go as planned. His blade sliced through my arcane construct sword like it wasn’t there. I abandoned my fire spell summoning my shield instead; I used both hands in an attempt to make it as strong as possible. Legion reared back his left arm and stabbed the blade into the dome of light. My shield blocked the blow, but it gave in a little: instead of being solid and immovable, the shield bent under the pressure of the sword. The demon gripped his left forearm with his right hand, and with the strength of both of his arms along with the weight of his body, he pushed against my shield with all of his might. I put every bit of pneuma I could into the shield, but it began to give more and more before ultimately cracking. Emma ran full speed at Legion, and Emma is very fast. She had an unbelievable amount of momentum; if she had hit a regular person, she would have splattered them into blood and guts. Not the demon though. Without even looking at her, he stuck out his right arm and grabbed her by the throat and slid four inches across the ground. He slowly turned his head to look at her with his sword still halfway piercing through my shield and began to tighten his grip around her throat. Emma is not someone you’d want to fuck with; she’s the kind of person that wouldn’t think twice about killing herself to take you down with her. Even without taking a breath of air, she waved both hands orange sigils before them, and she exploded. I don’t know how else to describe it; fire engulfed everything around in a twenty foot radius around her. We were close to the middle of the cemetery far from prying eyes, but there’s no way people didn’t see that. The cops would be coming soon; my half broken shield shattered under the destructive power of the flame. Rather than get burnt up, I summoned a two foot thick, five foot tall, and five foot wide rock wall out of the ground in front of me. I crouched behind the middle of the wall the second the fire struck it; I could feel the heat from the flame from above and on either side of the shield, and three fourths of it was destroyed by the blast, but I escaped unharmed.
After the fire dissipated, I stayed crouched behind the wall taking rapid, shallow breaths exactly the way they tell you not to, so I closed my eyes, forced myself to take a deep breath, and stood up. Emma was on the ground struggling to stand, so I hurried to her and helped her up. I looked all around, but I didn’t see Legion anywhere. Where the fuck were Kaine and Neil? They should have been here already; the damage to the cemetery was… extensive. Multiple headstones, markers, and statues had been destroyed, and the grass was obliterated in a thirty foot radius. My eyes were darting all around when I finally spotted the demon walking out from behind a half-destroyed stone monument. He had burns covering his body which were healing in front of my eyes; with a big smile on his face, he said, “Good, the stronger the prey, the stronger the summons.” His voice was still a combination of many voices, but this time, it sounded like a different set of voices. Without warning and before he finished repairing his flesh, he darted ten feet forward now directly to my side and slashed his blade arm. I pushed Emma to the ground and bent backward; his blade passed less than half of an inch above my nose and sliced through a curl in my hair that hadn’t followed my head when I dodged. I thought I was out of the woods, but Legion brought his right arm forward and punched me in the stomach. I reinforced my stomach muscles with pneuma the instant before he struck, and that’s probably the only reason my organs weren’t obliterated; that didn’t save me completely though as I went flying through the air and struck a stone obelisk. My back hit first followed closely by my head, and the world went white.
I don’t know how long I was unconscious; it was probably just seconds, but it felt like an eternity. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was pain. The pain was only in my head though; I guess that’s true of all pain, but it was particularly true in this case. I was confused and couldn’t determine why my head was hurting so bad, but all I could feel from my body was static. Like the connection had been broken.
For anyone else, that would be horrific news, but I had healed from worse. {Well, heal me.}
The demon wasn’t lying; after the incident with the orcs and Demonicunt, Quinn insisted my mental defenses needed to be increased. Ever since, I’d been wearing a silver ring covered in sigils, blessed, and anointed in righteous oil that limits the demon’s power. The archdemon couldn’t be sensed or detected even with the democculus as long as I wore the ring.
{I couldn’t let you out if I wanted to,} I replied in my mind.
The monster’s laugh filled my mind driving out all other thoughts, even the pain in my head. I couldn’t help it; I started laughing too. If Emma could hear me, she probably thought I was crazy or having a stroke or something.
I tried to focus my eyes, and I couldn’t; everything was spinning around. I closed my left eye and looked only with my right. It worked, sort of; I had very little peripheral vision, and everything went blurry every few seconds until I blinked. I couldn’t move my head without agony, so I was forced to look in one direction; Emma was nowhere to be seen, but I could see something. Legion was calmly and slowly walking toward me. I guess I was going to be his victim… a sacrifice to summon more demons into this world. I tried desperately to lift my hand, but it wouldn’t move. I was a fucking spellsword; I didn’t need to move to cause damage; I tried to instill pneuma into the tattoo on my hand, but that’s a difficult task when you can’t feel your fucking hand. With a grin on his face only the insane can have, the demon reared back his sword hand and struck. A normal person would have closed his eyes, but I kept mine open. The very instant before the blade sliced my throat open, I’d let the demon out and not a second earlier. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to; Neil appeared from the shadows and swung his mace striking Legion’s blade and preventing it from touching me. Without an ounce of effort, the demon overpowered Neil knocking his weapon from his hand and kicking him in the chest. Neil flew so far I couldn’t see him anymore, but I heard him strike the ground a few seconds later. Legion turned back toward me when a grey shape streaked across my vision as the demon’s blade arm detached from his body and fell to the ground.
Legion growled in fury as Kaine appeared in front of me. With a casual flick of his wrist and a brief glow of white, the demon’s blade lifted off of the ground and penetrated his own chest. Without skipping a beat, Kaine froze him solid from the neck down and levitated a small pebble into the air and shot it forward piercing the demon’s skull. Yeah, Kaine is a bad mother fucker; Legion’s head rolled back as he loss consciousness. “Is he dead?” I asked.
Kaine laughed bitterly, “I’m not sure he can die in this state.”
“I can’t move Kaine. I need you to take the ring off; then I can heal,” I said weakly. I was exhausting myself just from speaking.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dante,” he said looking me in the eye. He bent down right next to me and whispered, “We have an ally coming, and he must not know about your… condition.” He was adamant, and there was no point arguing with him when he got like that.
“So what, I’m just fucking paralyzed now?” I demanded.
“No,” he hissed. “Trust me!”
I had no reason not to trust him, so I did. Afterall, I could always take the ring off later. Legion’s head suddenly jutted forward; he was awake again despite the gaping hole in his forehead. Without making a sound, he pointed the hole right at me, and ejected the rock from inside his skull at bullet speeds. I think my heart fluttered, but I couldn’t feel it; I tried to visit the dam in my mind before my brains were blown out, but it was unnecessary. Without turning away from me, Kaine caught the stone; his hand was covered in pale pink light. I didn’t know it was possible to create a localized shield, but it didn’t surprise me that Kaine could do it. He stood up without saying a word and faced Legion; the hole in the demon’s head had closed. The ice surrounding him shattered, and he… put his arm back on. He ripped the blade out of his chest, placed the arm next to his stub, and the flesh elongated, gripping onto the severed limb and merging with it.
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“Kaine!” a deep voice bellowed from behind me.
“Hello, Titus,” Kaine said without turning around to greet the newcomer. Legion assumed a wide stance and growled at the new presence. I heard heavy footsteps coming from behind me, and a broad figure walked up and stood beside Kaine. He was at least 6’4’’ with 3’ shoulder span; he was wearing leather armor with chain mail over his chest and a longsword sheathed in a scabbard around his waist. He also had various pouches on his belt, around his legs and even his arms.
“You poor bastard,” he uttered gruffly.
“You think you scare us, knight?” Legion asked in his chorus of voices.
“I think you’re too stupid to be scared of me,” as the “knight” spoke, he reached into one of the pouches on his belt and retrieved a vial of clear liquid. “But you should be.” The second he finished speaking, Titus flicked the top of the vial off and threw the liquid onto Legion.
“ARGHHHHH!!” Legion screeched in dozens of different voices; whatever the substance was, it burned straight through the demon’s face. I don’t mean the first few layers of skin were gone; his bare bone was exposed with no skin or muscle before it. His body began changing: he shortened, lost his muscle definition and became emaciated, his blade hand became a regular hand, his hair darkened and matted, and he fell onto all fours. Titus kicked him in the face forcing him onto his back and unsheathed his weapon; the sword glowed with white light. It almost looked like he had a white, flat lightsaber. What’s more, the light itself was burning Legion’s skin. Steam was emanating forth from every part of the demon’s body that the light shone on. Muscle had started regrowing on his face albeit slowly, but the sword’s energy halted the process. There was something about that light… it filled me with a warm feeling in my heart, like I was in my mother’s arms being protected. I guess I don’t know what that feels like, but I can imagine it. I was experiencing something else as well, a deep uneasiness; there was a part of me that desperately wanted to hide in the darkness. That’s when I realized what it was: divine magic. Titus was wielding the power of the gods.
After thirty seconds maybe a minute, Legion’s voice reverted to the gravely voice with a southern accent. Titus resheathed his sword; the man before us kept screaming, but he was healing again. Once he regrew his skin, Titus stomped on his face putting an end to the shouts. “We’ll take him to the church,” he said quietly.
“Titus,” Kaine started.
“I see the boy,” he replied simply. Titus walked over to my position; I was still pressed up against the monument, slowly sliding down. I looked up at him, and I saw his face for the first time. He was beautiful in a masculine way; he had short brown hair parted on the side with blue eyes, a strong chin, and prominent cheek bones. He could have been a movie star or a model or something; that’s how pretty he was. He knelt before me and placed his hand on my head; his blue irises were replaced by a bright white light, and the same light shone from his hand. It was so bright it blinded me, and it came with a more powerful version of the feelings I had before. I felt perfectly at place and safe; like I was in exactly the right place I was supposed to be. I didn’t know this at the time, but the feeling is very similar to Vicodin. The other feeling was also intensified; a part of me screamed in agony in my mind. It took me a few seconds to realize it was the demon inside of me. After a few seconds, the light dimmed and stopped, and I could feel my body again. My vision returned to normal, and the pain in my head subsided. I lifted my hand and looked down at it.
“Whoah!” I exclaimed. “Thank you!” I said looking Titus in the face. His irises dimmed to their regular blue, but he was looking at me with a disgusted expression.
“Titus?” Kaine said noticing the look.
“I thought…” he trailed off. “Did a demon attempt to possess you?” he asked urgently.
“No,” I replied simply. My heart was racing; could he sense the demon within me? The ring was supposed to prevent that.
“Hmmph,” he muttered, but he looked away, his expression returning to normal. I got to my feet and ran to Emma. She was unconscious but seemingly unharmed; I bent down and kissed her forehead.
“Are you ok?”
Her eyes fluttered before opening completely and focusing on me; for a brief moment she seemed disturbed at the sight of me before smiling. “Hey, Dante,” she whispered. A moment later, her eyes grew wide, and she looked all around. “Where’s the demon!?” she shouted.
“It’s ok,” I said giving her a hug. “We… well, they captured him.” Titus walked toward us with Legion slung across his shoulder.
Emma’s eyes widened even more, “A Knight Templar?” She sounded amazed, like she was looking at a unicorn.
“Indeed,” he replied.
“A Knight Templar? Like from the Middle Ages?” I asked. “I thought the Catholic Church killed them all.”
“They tried,” he muttered quietly. “I’ve no time for a history lesson, we must get to the church.”
“What church?”
“St. Catherine of Alexandria,” Kaine said as he approached with Neil.
I walked over and gripped Neil tightly on the shoulder. “Thanks, man. I’d be headless right now if it weren’t for you.”
He grinned widely, “Saving your ass is a fulltime job, Dante.”
St. Catherine’s was right on the edge of the cemetery; we were always supposed to interrogate the prisoner there, but Kaine conveniently left out any mention of the Knight Templar. As we began to walk, we heard dozens of sirens growing closer; the authorities were coming. While we headed toward the church, Emma filled me in. Apparently, I was the only one in the dark about the Templars. At some point, the Knights learned the truth: there isn’t a single god but rather a pantheon of gods. A small subset of humanity is able to commune with the deities and gain power to rival spellswords or even wizards. The Catholic Church hunted most of them down for blasphemy, but by going underground, they kept their order alive to the present day and installed plants in the clergy of all major religions. The priest on duty in St. Catherine’s was one such plant and was waiting for us. The Knights Templar singular purpose was to ensure the gods’ will was carried out; as no one has talked to the gods in millennia, I’m not sure how exactly they knew what that will is, but they interrupted that to mean they should protect humanity from supernatural threats. In that sense, they’re not that different than the Gnosilepides; however, they can be much more… harsh. If the Gnosilepides catch someone using forbidden magic, they are put on trial and extenuating circumstances are often considered. The Templars, however, tend to execute first and ask questions never. I hated to think about what he’d do to me if he found out the truth.
The church was beautiful with a large tower with a conical top, a ton of stained glass, and a statue of the Mother Mary holding a post crucifixion Jesus. We went around to the back and knocked; a priest came to the door hurriedly rushing us inside. He was an older balding man with grey hair and glasses; however, he had the air of someone that could handle himself in a fight, a quiet confidence that didn’t need to assert itself.
“Greetings, brother,” Titus said.
With a smile and a small chuckle, “No longer, Titus. Come in, hurry.”
The inside of the church was just as beautiful with moonlight shining through the stained glass; the priest took us into a small room in the basement. I would have guessed it was a broom closet, but rather than mops or trash bags, it was completely empty save for shelves on the pressed against the walls full of what looked like wine bottles containing a clear liquid, and a wooden chair bolted to the ground with chains attached to it. The only light in the room was a single incandescent lightbulb hanging from the ceiling directly above the chair. Titus brought Legion to the chair and chained his hands and feet; as the restraints clasped shut, they briefly glowed with the same light he had summoned earlier.
Titus slapped Legion… or his vessel in the face quite forcefully. His head jerked around from the blow.
“Mrghah,” he muttered without opening his eyes. Titus slapped him again even harder this time; the man slowly opened his eyes. They were regular brown eyes this time; the demons within him must have been hiding within his soul. “Hello, Templar,” he said in his southern accent. Without saying a word, he walked to the edge of the room and grabbed one of the wine bottles. He calmly walked toward Legion as the demon struggled against the restraints to distance himself from the approaching Templar.
“Stop!” the demon begged. “I’ll talk just stop!” Without a moment of hesitation, Titus shattered the bottle on Legion’s head. I’ve had to kill a few people… ok, maybe more than a few. I may have even tortured people a time or two when time was short, and I needed to know something, but the screams that came from his mouth are like nothing I’d ever heard before or since. The sounds were his human voice and only his voice; whatever substance was in the bottle must have been the same liquid Titus had used earlier; Legion’s skin was sizzling though to a lesser extent. Instead of burning through skin and organs alike, only the skin was affected. It was sizzling, smoking, and becoming discolored; however, it wasn’t melting away like it had been. His cries became weaker and weaker until he lost consciousness presumably from the pain.
“What the fuck is that stuff?” I asked considering stealing a bottle for myself.
“Do you teach them nothing, Kaine?” Titus asked unamused.
“It’s holy water,” Kaine replied without looking away from the unfortunate soul before us.
“Like regular Catholic holy water?” I asked confused.
“Nearly all religions have ties to the gods; now be silent boy!” Titus barked.
“Oh no, I pissed off the wanna-be-knight; how will I ever live with myself?” I asked sarcastically. Kaine turned to me and gave me a very stern look, so I fell silent.
Titus ignored me and punched Legion in the stomach; he groaned and opened his eyes again. The cuts on his head had healed, but his skin still looked partially melted. Titus grabbed the demon’s face and pointed it at his own leaning down to look him in the eyes. “How did you summon the first demon?” he asked in a stern, angry voice.
Legion, well the human that became Legion, looked absolutely terrified; he was shaking and pulling at the chains to back away from the holy knight. “The voices told me,” he squeaked. Titus squinted his eyes in a minor show of frustration, but that was enough to make the prisoner continue, “I’ve heard them since I was a boy. Everyone thought I was crazy, but they’d tell me things before they happened or stuff I shouldn’t have known.”
“Probably a minor seer,” Kaine said. At my puzzled look, he sighed and continued, “Sometimes, they can attract demons; likely a minor one who told him how to bring in more.”
Titus reared back to punch the man again when Kaine caught his wrist. “Sometimes you catch more flies with honey, Titus.” Kaine knelt down in front of the demon and asked, “What’s your name?”
“J-Johnny Morlowe,” he whisered on the verge of tears.
“Hey Johnny,” Kaine said in a sweet voice like he was talking to a child. “We’re going to make the voices go away, but first you need to tell us what they want.”
Johnny whispered so low, I could barely hear him even with pneuma-enhanced senses. “They let me KILL!” He shouted the last word and attempted to headbutt Kaine right in the face. I say attempted because the moment Johnny started the motion, Kaine had pulled his head back and elbowed the demon in the face breaking his nose and splattering blood everywhere.
Titus chuckled, “You’re a fool, Kaine. Demons rarely possess the innocent; this one would have been a killer without their taint. You will answer the question, Johnny.” He spat the man’s name with venom; “The only uncertainty is how long it will take.”
Johnny’s apparent fear returned; he began shaking again and pulling against his restraints. In a single fluid motion, Titus drew his sword which was glowing brightly. Johnny whimpered pathetically; his skin was still red and blistered, and in the light of the sword it began steaming once more.
“No, wait. I have a better idea.” Titus sheathed his sword, and I saw the first genuine smile on his face I’d seen. He looked like an angel; he was deranged and violent apparently, but he looked peaceful and benevolent. “Usually, this wouldn’t work, but you have so many demons in you, I think it might.” He reached his hand out as Johnny desperately tried to pull away but to no avail. Titus placed his hand on the terrified man’s forehead, and a bright white light shone from it so bright I could see it through Johnny’s skin. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell silent. He didn’t speak, moan, or even move for ten or fifteen seconds, and then he began seizing, moving uncontrollably and randomly.
“Nooooo, you can’t!” a high pitched voice that wasn’t Johnny’s came from his mouth. His eyes irises became visible again: they were glowing a deep purple.
“I command you in the name of the gods, FLEE!” Titus started as a whisper, but each word was increasingly loud, and he was shouting by the ‘flee.’ Johnny urgently attempted to keep his mouth closed, but he couldn’t. After a few seconds his jaws opened wide, and a misshapen cloud of navy blue semi-transparent gas shot out of his mouth… it was a demon, and it was screeching in pain. The demon flew around the room for a few seconds making a terrible low-pitched cry of agony before it passed through the floor like it wasn’t there.
“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” I said genially.
Johnny had sweat pouring off of him, and he was shaking uncontrollably like he had been vomiting for an hour. A drop of blood also dripped out of his nose.
“I wonder how many times I’ll have to do that before you tell me what I want to know,” Titus said completely ignoring my hilarious comment. Well, it was mildly humorous at least.
“No, no, please,” Johnny sobbed. “No mo..” He started having a coughing fit again. “Lillith, Lillith.” He fell limp against his restraints as the color faded from Titus’s and Kaine’s faces.
“Did he say what I think he said?” asked Neil speaking up for the first time.
“Lillith. That’s his end goal; he wanted to summon her into the mortal plane,” Emma replied. Kaine and Titus exchanged worried looks. The knight went to slap Johnny awake, but the demon lifted his head up; he had a malicious expression on his face, and his eyes were glowing yellow.
“Hello, Templar,” he said in a deep voice with no trace of Johnny’s accent.
“You must be a strong one to reveal yourself on hallowed ground,” Titus said in a low voice. Some of his bravado had returned, but he wasn’t hiding his concern particularly well.
“Indeed, I am. Titus, is it?” Johnny asked with a grin. All of his wounds had healed; his skin didn’t even look irritated anymore.
Titus retrieved another one of the bottles filled with holy water; “I presume you know what I want from you, demon,” he growled.
Legion laughed heartily, “But you already know! Lillith will enter the mortal plane; it’s only a matter of time; go ahead and send us back to hell. We’ll just come back!”
Without a word, Titus drew his sword, ignited it (or whatever, made it glow,) and stabbed the demon through the heart; it took him about a tenth of a second. Blood poured out of Legion’s chest as his skin and organs, anything touching the sword disintegrated leaving a giant hole in his chest two inches wide. Legion didn’t scream, but he gritted his teeth clearly in pain. “I have a theory, demon. One of your wretched kind didn’t happen upon half insane seer; someone found a child with minor psychic abilities and forcefully possessed him.” Titus pressed the blade against the demon’s face causing the skin to sizzle and smoke.
Legion opened his mouth to speak but only a choking sound emerged along with a bit of blood, a drop of which landed on the Templar’s sword boiling away instantly and leaving no residue whatsoever. Titus sheathed the sword, and the demon began healing. After a minute or two the hole in his chest closed, and he spoke, “You’re an old fool, knight! The gods have twisted your perception so much, you see demonic conspiracy everywhere you look.” He smiled widely, as Titus turned his back on the monster pacing in the small room. “Don’t be ashamed, Titus! It happens to all of your kind eventually. Your little mortal minds are incapable of handling divinity; every exorcism or prayer cooks your brain a little more.”
Titus grabbed another bottle of holy water and threw it with superhuman strength, and it shattered on Legion’s face. When I was a kid, Kaine considered himself grillmaster. He even had an apron with that printed on it; when he was home, he’d occasionally fire up the grill with charcoal only, no gas, like the opposite of Hank Hill. His specialty was sausage dogs; sometimes, the grill would be hot enough to vaporize the water inside of sausage forcing steam out of the meat and emitting a high pitch squealing sound. That was exactly the sound Legion’s face was making as the holy water seared it. The demon managed to suppress his screams, but a pained grunt escaped his clenched teeth. “I find that hard to believe, filth,” Titus said walking slowly toward Legion like a hunter going to collect mortally wounded prey. “Because at two of the crime scenes, hooded figures wearing all black were seen. The Cloaks have revealed themselves to be the monsters the Knights Templar always knew they were! They’re working with you demons, aren’t they? AREN’T THEY?”
“Titus!” a voice from outside the room screamed. The priest from earlier burst into the room out of breath and terrified. “They’re here!”
“Who?” Kaine asked sounding alarmed. “Demons?”
“No, three Cloaks,” the priest replied.
“They’ll have no power here on hallowed ground,” Titus said confidently.
“You underestimate them Titus,” Kaine muttered, pushing the hair out of his face and revealing the scars across his cheek. Just then the power went out plunging the room into complete darkness; Kaine tossed Emma her sword, and they drew their weapons as I summoned my sword. The light from Titus’s sword was bright enough to completely light the room, but Kaine summoned a sphere of light which hung a few feet below the ceiling for good measure.
“They will not harm a man of the gods who poses no threat to them,” the priest said confidently as he opened the door.
“You underestimate them as well, Father. They are singularly focused: only the mission matters to them, and they don’t question their orders even if they seem contrary to their purpose!” Kaine pleaded. Unfazed, the father walked through the doorway; Titus grabbed him by the arm, but he broke free and left closing the door behind him.
“Why would the cloaks be helping demons?” I asked.
Malicious laughter came from somewhere behind me; it was soft and quiet at first but became louder and louder. After a few seconds it became a genuine belly laugh; from anyone else, it would sound joyous, but Legion managed to make it sound pure evil. Titus moved to slice the demon when the door to our room exploded in a series of wooden shards as something big flew through it… It was the father’s body only he had no head. A large man roughly the same size as Titus calmly walked through the doorway holding the priest’s head in his left hand by his …err its hair. Without a word, he tossed the decapitated head onto the ground.
“You are no better than a demon,” Titus said in a shaking voice; there were tears streaming down his face. “You embrace the power of hell,” he spoke more loudly. “You surrender your own soul to damnation; if you live like a demon, you will die like one.” With his sword drawn, Titus charged the Cloak; the hooded man drew a sword glowing pale blue with mist or something radiating off of it. I expected the Templar’s divine blade would slice through the chunk of metal like it was nothing, but it didn’t; the two swords clashed and held each other in place. The Cloak lifted his head, and I could see his face; he was ugly with a brow that extended beyond his eyes, and those eyes were glowing the same blue as his sword. With his free hand, the Cloak touched the wall next to the broken door. At first nothing happened, but then his hand began to glow, and the wall turned to solid ice. It was a feat I could have pulled off, but the ice was different somehow, darker, and it gave off an ominous vibe. Don’t judge me for using the word vibe; doucebags have given the word a bad connotation, but anyway, the ice felt wrong.
“Hellfrost…” Emma whispered with something, maybe reverence?
Kaine rushed the Cloak… ok from now on, his name is Frosty the Snowman. Kaine rushed Frosty with his sword in hand, the Cloak seamlessly dodged the attack, riposted Titus’s sword, and struck the ice wall with his sword causing it to shatter. Two more Cloaks entered the room from where the wall had been; one of them was a short, skinny woman who was maybe five foot nothing with glowing green eyes visible from underneath her hood and a similarly glowing sword. The other was a medium build man about my height with glowing orange eyes/sword. Then, all hell broke loose, and a lot of shit happened at the same time. In the same motion that broke the wall, Frosty swung his sword around his back changing hands and went for Titus’s throat. The Templar narrowly blocked the attack with a shimmering shield that appeared around him; it wasn’t like my shield. It wasn’t spherical, and it wasn’t visible all at once; white light sort of shimmered through it like waves in a pond. I know I make up names for people too often, but I’m going to call the lady cloak Sicky and the other male Hungry; the reasons why will become obvious. Sicky jumped through the air clearing Titus and brushing against the ceiling before bringing her sword down from above Kaine who summoned his shield. Hungry darted into the room avoiding conflict; I thought he was going for Neil, Emma, and me, but I was wrong. I began running as fast as I could once I realized his goal, but I was too late.
“What are you do—” Legion was cut short as the orange blade sliced straight through his neck. Hungry decapitated Johnny; the poor bastard was only a tool for the Cloaks, and once he had outlived his usefulness they discarded him. We needed to change the arena; there was no room to do magic in this tiny little room without killing everyone in it.
“How important is this building, Titus?” I screamed as I ran toward Hungry.
“It is inconsequential!” he screamed as he struggled against Frosty.
“Good,” I said with a smile. I lifted my hand as an orange glow permeated the room; I sphere of flame appeared in front of my hand which I pointed at Hungry. At first the fireball was the size of a pebble, but as I pumped more and more pneuma into the spell, it grew. Hungry just stared at me with a big smile on his face; once the fire was three feet or so in diameter, I screamed, “SHIELDS,” as I lifted my hand straight up and launched the flame at the ceiling.